Thayer Walk Project — Along the Wall |
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Once Divided . . . Now United |
Along this wall are displayed compelling examples of acts and events that are testimony to the reconciliation which transpired between 1861 and 1913 across the United States. |
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 | 1861 |  |
West Point, New York |
Class of May 1861
45 Graduated
“Faithful to Death”
. . . Class Motto | Class of June 1861
34 Graduated
“Through Trials to Triumph”
. . . Class Motto |
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Between 1856 and 1857, 155 young men from across the United States entered the Military Academy as members of the Classes of 1861 and 1862. After the outbreak of the Civil War, the Academy petitioned and the War Department authorized the early graduation of these two classes and they became the Classes of May 1861 and June 1861. |
Just months short of graduation, amidst the escalating sectional tensions of the time, members of each class were forced to decide whether to remain loyal to the Union or to support the Confederacy. Faced with this decision, most remained loyal to the Union; however, five from the May class and twenty-three from the June class left the Academy and fought for the Confederacy. In addition, six graduates from the May class and three from the June class resigned their commissions or were dismissed from the United States Army and joined their classmates, who had departed without graduating, in fighting for the Confederacy. |
There was a premature and bloody reunion of the classes on July 21, 1861, when many of both classes fought on either side at the 1st Battle of Manassas. |
Among these young men who began the 1861 academic year behind the Academy’s gray walls, the cost of the war was high: twelve died fighting for the Union, nine for the Confederacy. |
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 | 1861 | |
Fort Sumter, South Carolina
April 12, 1861 |
Brigadier General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, USMA Class of 1838, and a former Superintendent, led the Secessionist Forces at Charleston, South Carolina. They fired on Federal Forces at Fort Sumter, commanded by Major Robert Anderson, USMA Class of 1825. |
Major Anderson was General Beauregard’s artillery instructor at West Point when Beauregard was a cadet. |
|
 | 1862 | |
Antietam, Maryland
September 17, 1862 |
On the bloodiest day of the war, Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes, a future Supreme Court Justice, commanded A Company, 10th Massachusetts, in the division commanded by Major General John Sedgwick, USMA Class of 1837. Captain Holmes, although severely wounded in the neck, ran unsteadily toward the Nicodemus house. He staggered into the living room, collapsed on the floor, and realized that the farmhouse had fallen into Confederate hands. |
A Rebel poked his head through a shattered window inquiring, “Yankees?” Someone groaned, “Yes.” “Wounded?” asked the Rebel, and “Yes” was the reply. “Want some water?” responded the Rebel as he whirled his canteen into the room and dashed off to join his unit on a skirmish line north of the house. |
The Rebel unit remained at the Nicodemus farm about fifteen minutes before Federal gunners began firing at them and the Rebels realized they had to withdraw. The Rebel who loaned his canteen to the wounded in the house poked his head through the window again and shouted, “Hurry up there! Hand me my canteen! I am on the double quick myself now!” |
Excerpted from Antietam: The Soldiers Battle by John M. Priest |
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